Banur, June 14
A couple of Gajjukhera village today paid a price for marrying against the wishes of their family. The girl’s brother killed the groom while the girl succumbed to her injuries at the
PGI, Chandigarh.

The victim has been identified as Suresh Kumar, who used to run a puncture fixing shop in the village.

He married Sanvinder
Kaur, who belonged to a Dalit family from the same village, in February. Their parents were against the alliance and the couple solemnised the marriage in court. They were staying with the family of the youth.

The brother of the girl, Sarabjeet Singh, deployed as a security guard at an engineering college in
Rajpura.

According to neighbours of the deceased, Sarabjeet Singh returned to the village last night. Some of his friends had reportedly instigated him to take action against the couple for going against the wishes of the family.

This afternoon he went to Suresh's house, where his parents were sleeping and the door of the house was open due to a power cut.

Sarabjeet attacked the couple, hitting Sanvinder on the head once. When Suresh woke up, he hit him on the head, too," said a neighbour who rushed the youth to hospital.

After killing Suresh and seriously injuring
Sanvinder, Sarabjeet reportedly went to the police station where he surrendered himself.

The police, however, refused to comment on the issue.

Suresh’s parents ran a tea stall and Sanvinder's family was also poor, villagers said.

The police said action would be initiated after receiving a complaint. Neither any case had been registered nor any arrest made till the filing of the report.

Class X Result
Local girl bags third position in state
Tribune Reporters

Fatehgarh Sahib, June 14
The Class X result of Punjab State Education Board spelled surprise for Jandeep Kaur from village Chanarthal Khurd, who secured third place in the board exam.

She has secured 93.23 per cent. “This is beyond my expectations. I was confident of excelling, but never knew that I would secure third place,” said an elated Jandeep.

A student of Baba Biram Dass DAV Public School, Jandeep wants to be an IAS officer. She said instead of making education more subjective, it should be made more interesting. “Perhaps introducing educational tours can help students understand basics in a better way,” she said.

Jandeep’s father Avtar Singh works as an accountant at Co-operative Bank, Chanarthal Kalan, and her mother Rupinder Kaur is a house wife. She is the eldest of the three children.

She said she is thankful to her principal Ashok Kumar Sharma who helped her to perform better.

In Patiala it was Diksha Gupta of Young Farmers Public High School, Bhadson, who topped Patiala district securing 92.3 per cent. Overall, Diksha has been placed 12th in the state. Meanwhile, Mandeep Kaur of Modern Senior Secondary School got second position and Surbhi Jindal of the same school was placed third in the district.

Kharar, June 14
The ambitious proposal to set up model bus stand at Kharar fails to take shape. With neither the Block Development Panchayat Office (BDPO) nor the local bodies willing to go ahead with the project, people are forced to use the makeshift kind of bus stand that has been notified as an accident-prone area by the Punjab police.

Kharar has emerged as a developed suburb of Chandigarh and is one of the main entry routes from Punjab to the UT. The proposal remains pending since 1999, when the then SAD-led government had made tall claims of setting up a model bus stand here at a cost of Rs 1.25 crores. It was claimed that the bus stand will be equipped with all modern facilities.

In 2007, the cost of same was re-calculated to Rs 2 crores. The set up is to come up in 2.4 acres of land owned jointly by Kharar municipal council, BDPO and transport department. MC Kharar is executing agency for the same. The building of the bus stand is to be constructed after demolishing structure of the old bus stand, panchayat samiti building and MC building.

Sources in MC say that in 2007, MC had written to director local bodies regarding possession of land under BDPO. It has also written to BDPO office demanding a list of shops rented out and to know if some court cases were pending in this connection.

"We wanted to go ahead with the demolition task as soon as possible. But till date we have got no response," added an MC official. He added that the file remains pending with secretary local bodies, which is delaying execution of project.

In absence of a proper bus stand, the stretch witnesses frequent road accidents. Many of these are fatal and innocent people end up losing their lives. Improper navigation of traffic has added to the woes of the commuters. "Whenever a VIP or VVIP motorcade is to pass, the entire stretch is cleared. Why doesn't the traffic police do the same when chaos rules the area? It has become increasingly difficult to pass the area without hitting one vehicle or another," added Gurnam Singh, a resident of Mundi Kharar.

As per the finalised plan, the new bus stand will have reserved space for rickshaws, auto rickshaws and taxi stands. It would also feature separate provision for loading and unloading of passengers without entering main shed of the premises. The buses plying from Kharar bus stand would stand at the main shed, while separate space lot will be assigned for long route buses from Chandigarh and going to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Meanwhile, DDPO Mohali, Pushpinder Singh Grewal said no file regarding Kharar bus stand had come to him.

Rajpura, June 14
The Rajpura police has arrested seven mobile snatchers and recovered 31 stolen mobiles from them. The police has also recovered two stolen motorcycles from their possession.

According to the city SHO Bikramjeet Singh Brar, the accused had been stealing mobile phones from busy places, including bus stands, markets and from religious places. The accused admitted of stealing mobile phones from Patiala bus stand, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ambala and Rajpura. Market value of the mobile phones recovered from them was said to be around Rs 1 lakh. The accused admitted that they had 60or 65 such mobiles with them and they were about to sell it off to various shopkeepers in Rajpura and adjoining areas.

The police has also arrested a shopkeeper in this connection who use to purchase stolen mobiles from the snatchers. The shopkeeper has been identified as Parveen Kumar (35). There was a computer expert, a graduate, from Rajpura, among the accused who used to block the cards in the stolen mobile phones.

Police officials said these snatchers were arrested on a tip off and also with the help of the EMI number of the stolen or snatched mobile phones.

All accused were conducting a meeting near the cremation ground at Rajpura when the police got a tip off about them. These snatchers were gathered there for distribution of stolen mobile phones among them. A case has been registered.

Anandpur Sahib, June 14
Villagers from the nearby village Lamlehri and cops pitched in four hours together to scare the tiger away from the village on Friday night.

Some villagers spotted a tiger moving around the boundary of the village at around 8 pm on Friday. They immediately raised an alarm and informed the forest block officer, Malkeet Singh. As per village nambardar Hari Singh, the officials refused to come at night.

Thereafter, the villagers informed cops at Anandpur Sahib police station and SHO Surinderpal Singh Lidhar sent a police party to help the villagers.

After much effort, the team of villagers and cops managed to scare away the animal back into woods. At around midnight, the beast walked back. But before that it had already attacked a pet dog and injured it badly.

Panic gripped the village as villagers remained indoors. Even the windows were kept closed. The team used torches and batons to scare away the animal. Villagers said the animal was spotted couple of days ago too on the peripheral areas of the village. They demanded that some permanent measure should be taken to keep the animal away.

When contacted Malkit Singh said he got a call from the villagers at around 11.30 pm. "We would have to lay a trap with meat and then would have caught the animal. This was not possible during night hours," he said. He added that the area falls under Guru Nanak Dev Nature reserve, falling in villages Rampur-Jajjar-Bachauli, which has been handed over to the wildlife department.

"I called up wildlife officer Amarjit Singh but his phone was switched off. I repeatedly called up at his number but could not get through," he said.

Chandigarh, June 14
Himal Gusain and Ashwani Nirankari were leading a pack of 53 players, accumulating four points each, at the end of the second day in the ongoing Chandigarh Prize Money Chess Championship 2008 at St Xavier’s Senior Secondary School, Sector 44, here today.

With 3.5 points each, Abhinandan Vohra and Koumudi are vying on the second spot.

Chandigarh, June 14
Jatinder Singh crushed Abhayjeet Gill by 7-0 in the first round of boys’ singles (under-12) qualifying rounds in the All-India Tennis Association Talent Series being held at the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association Stadium here today.

There is a draw of 64 players in the qualifying rounds.

In the under-16 category, Devbir, Vinayak Mehta and Angad Ahluwalia moved ahead beating their respective opponents in the first round of singles qualifying rounds.

In a draw of 96, eight players will qualify for the main draw.

The qualifying round matches will continue tomorrow while the main draw will commence on June 16.

Chandigarh, June 14
Hot on the heels of the inaugural PGTI Players Championship held in Chandigarh, the Professsional Golf Tour of India has announced the second Rs 30 lakh prize money event to be held at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club from June 18 to 21.

Chandigarh golfer Harendra Gupta, who clinched the inaugural event held in Chandigarh with the biggest prize money, will be leading the professionals from the city. Another major challenge could be from Kapurthala's Gaganjeet Bhullar.

Besides these, two prominent names of Indian professional golf will be vying for top honours.

The stellar field includes leading Indian professionals such as S.S.P. Chowrasia, Gaurav Ghei, Rahil Gangjee, Ashok Kumar, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Ganapathy, Arjun Singh, Digvijay Singh and Feroz Ali Mollah to name a few. PGTI's initiative has
ensured that the sports-loving city of Kolkata hosts its first professional golf tournament in about two and a half years.

The Pro-Am event will be held on June 22. This event boasts of prize money of Rs 30 lakh and is supported by the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, TaylorMade, Pepsico, Gatorade, Aquafina, Tropicana and Sport18.

PGTI Tour Commissioner Ajay Gupta said, "This tournament is a result of our commitment to provide maximum playing opportunities to our players and promote golf across various regions of the country."

World Blood Donor Day
Myth holding women back
Anuja Jaiswal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 14
Though women require blood transfusion more than men, primarily due to deliveries, they donate the least. Prevalence of anaemia, lack of awareness, discouragement from families and myths are the reasons for the trend, said PGI doctors on World Blood Donor Day today.

“These misconception among women tend to deter women from donating blood but the fact is that it’s all myth,” they said.

But some women have set an example and inspired more women to go for donate blood. This is why the number of women donors has gone up as compared to previous years.

Dr Usha Roy from department of transfusion medicine, PGI, said out of 112 donors who donated blood today, 20 were women. Just one or two had donated blood more than once.

Harkiran Kaur (49) is the highest donor in the women’s category with a record 70 donations.

Following in her footsteps, her two children - aged 25 and 21, respectively - have also taken to blood donation.

“I want to change the misconception and have pledged to commit the rest of my life to encouraging and inspiring more women to donate blood,” says Harkiran.

Besides her, Jaswant Kaur has done it 56 times. She says: “I first donated blood in 1986 alone but later my husband Balwant joined me and we both have been donating blood ever since.”

In fact, when they were looking for a match for their elder son, they had put forth just one condition i.e. “the girl should be ready to donate blood”, says Jaswant.

And now that their daughter is embarking on marital journey, the criterion remains the same for the groom-to-be.

The couple have also created history by entering the Limca Book of Records for highest number of blood donations by a couple.

Since 1991, they have donated blood 52 times together. Confessing that it was not difficult to reach the 56 mark, Jaswant said she kept herself healthy and fit by sticking to green leafy vegetables, grams and other iron-rich food.

Dr Roy admitted that women donated lesser blood as compared to men. “The fact is that they want to donate blood but due to misconceptions and family pressure they cannot,” she said.

But now, the trend is changing and more and more women are come forward to donate blood, she added.

Meanwhile, the Blood Bank Society tied up with Fun Republic and distributed movie tickets of film “Sarkar Raj” to blood donors at Sukhna Lake. Besides, they distributed sweets and gifts.

Panchkula, June 14
The district police has arrested Pappu, a migrant, for killing Poonam, his wife. Poonam use to work at a brick kiln. Poonam’s body was found near a brick kiln at village Kiratpur on June 4. Vijay alias Pappu was absconding after committing the crime but was nabbed when he came to old Panchkula looking for a job.

Pappu killed his wife after he started suspecting her character. In fact Poonam’s first marriage took place in West Bengal. She left her first husband and remarried Banwari, a resident of Seem Nagar near Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. From Banwari she had two kids. Later, she entered a relationship with her neighbour Paapu who was a father of two children. However, when the village Panchayat objected to their relation they left the village and started living together at Pinjore. Though, Pappu left his children at his village, Poonam took her children along with her.

However, after killing Poonam at Pinjore on June 4, Pappu reached his house at Lalru where he had shifted a few days ago. Immediately leaving the house with his children he went to his village and handed over the children to Banwari saying that their mother had eloped with some one else, said the police.

Chandigarh, June 14
Lakhan Singh, a resident of Sector 32, and Jaspal Singh, a resident of 3B2, Mohali, assaulted and seriously injured Dinesh Rai Jain, a resident of Sector 35, over a property dispute outside his residence here this morning. While Jaspal has been arrested, Lakhan is at large.

According to sources, Jaspal runs a guesthouse in Phase 3B2.

Jain, a finance agent, had purchased a property at Ravinder Enclave, Zikarpur, from Lakhan in 2005 by paying the entire amount.

Lakhan had transferred the property through power of attorney in the name of Jain, who took its possession and raised a structure over it.

In April, 2008, Jain received a phone call from a recovery agent of LIC Housing Finance, who informed him that the property was mortgage with the LIC and he had to pay Rs 9 lakh.

Jain brought the matter to the notice of his lawyer and informed the UT police as also the Mohali police about the fraud played with him by Lakhan.

The police assured Jain of holding investigation and arresting the culprits.

When Jain was about to leave his house for his office today, a group of around five men attacked him with sharp-edged weapons.

He was injured with a fracture and taken to the Government Multi-Specialty Hospital, Sector 16, from where he was discharged after receiving treatment.

Jain told the TNS that he had been regularly receiving threat calls from Jaspal and Lakhan, about which he had informed the police.

“I was leaving for my office when the group attacked me. The assailants, armed with sharp-edged weapons, would have killed me had people living nearby not come to my rescue.”

Chandigarh, June 14
Abdul Samad, a Lebanese, who was arrested yesterday on charges of fraud from Sector 23 had been using fake visas stamps. Abdul’s wife Rubbi, the main accused in the case, is said to be residing somewhere in Mohali.

According to sources, Abdul owned a printing press, which was being used to print fake passports. The stamps used on passports were also fake.

Meanwhile, the police raided a house in Delhi to track the whereabouts of Rubbi.

The police searched the rented accommodation of Rubbi in Vishnu Gardens, Delhi, and informed the owner about the case. The police has sealed the residence and directed the owner not to open it without the permission of the police.

However, the mobile tower location of Rubbi indicated that she was putting up in Mohali. The police is likely to take Abdul along to Delhi tomorrow to gather documents pertaining to the case.

The rented accommodation in Delhi is one of the places from where the accused used to operate, sources said.

According to the police, Abdul Samad along with Rubbi used to take Rs 65,000 from individuals on the pretext of sending them to Lebanon.

Mohali, June 14
A resident of Nayagaon today charged a constable with an attempt to rape her.

According to the police, the victim said she was alone at home when the Punjab police constable entered and allegedly attempted to rape her. Her body reportedly had bruises. When she raised an alarm, the constable fled from her house, she further alleged.

He was arrested later. Both the victim and the constable are neighbours at Nayagaon and frequented each other’s house.

A case under Sections 452 and 354, IPC, has been registered against the suspect.

Mohali, June 14
A student of Shaheed Udham Singh College of Engineering and Technology, Tangori, was found carrying a pistol when he had come to the institute for appearing in an examination today.

SHO of the Sohana police station said Jaskaran Singh, a resident of Amritsar, was a final year student of electrical communication in the college and had come to the institute to appear in the examination, which was the last in the series. He said students were searched before entering the examination hall. When it was Jaskaran’s turn he was reluctant to get himself searched. But when the search by the security staff was carried out, it was found out that he was carrying a pistol

Chandigarh, June 14
The disappearance of 15-year-old Ram Sarjeevan on Thursday has caused panic among his family members. The boy’s brother Ghansham said Sarjeevan was upset ever since his Class VIII result was out last month. Sarjeevan left the house saying he was going to a friend’s place.

Panchkula, June 14
The folk musical traditions are a living and integral part of any region or a country which represent the cultural ethos of their people and can constitute a bond of union between the people of different nations and levels.

With this concept the dynamism and grandeur of folk musical composite culture of all the constituent nations of erstwhile USSR was brought alive here today. The dazzling display of popular dances by the world-renowned Moiseyev State Akademic Ensemble of Moscow at the Indradhanush auditorium remained close to the heartbeat of the audience.

The event brought to the city by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Federal Agency of Cultural and Cinematography of Russia, in collaboration with the department of public relations and cultural affairs, Haryana, presented a rich repository of folk dances of the erstwhile sates of USSR.

All the thirteen compositions choreographed by the legendary ballet maestro, Igor Moisyev depicted their joys, sorrows, ambitions, emotional disposition and patriotic fervour. The programme commenced with a general introduction through the Russian dance ‘SUMMER’ depicting prosperity and merry making. The Hora or Jhok dance evoked the aspirations of the female and like wise the ‘Seven beauties’ and ‘Picture of the past’ connected them to the roots. In all the dances the dancers displayed an adroit mastery over the footwork, physical prowess and geometrical accuracy during every performance. The audience also applauded for the solo mime show and the concluding ‘Naval suite’, depicting the life of the sailor. The dancers displayed an immaculate synchronisation, energy level, facial gestures, eloquent body, verve and virility during the two-hour dancing spectacle.